How should I get started?

[Colin]

Hello,

I have a band and we decided we'd like to invest a little money into having a small home recording studio to play with and record demo tapes and stuff. I found this website and still am a little confused on what to get and all. We rigged together a tape deck and some mics and recorded off that and it sounded ok for recording practice so we could go back and listen to what we did wrong and want to change, etc. but we want something a little better.

So here's our inventory list..

1 drumset
1 guitarist with a huge stack amp.. it's a fender head with a 6 speaker cab on top of a 4 speaker cab (definate overkill, but the cabs only cost him like $275)
Another guitarist with a Peavey Amp, about 1/8th the power of the other guitarist.
A bassist running through an amp to a 4 speaker cab.

A 6 channel powered mixer running out to 2 old marshall monitors and 2 peavy SP2G PA speakers. (our singer and my drum mics run through this).

1 Windows PC 333mhz with 64mb of ram and a 4 gig hd or so.

1 iMac 333mhz with 96mb of ram and a 4 gig hd.

1 old tape deck with two inputs

1 good Peavy mic (our singer uses this one)

about 5 crappy ass mics we record with (I know we'll need better ones, just have other things to spend cash on right now.. christmas gifts are a pain!)


So... any advice for setting up a dinky little recording studio? Our guitarist also has a Windows PC with a cd burner, which would be great if we could record cd's.

thanx!

 

[dobro]

If you want to record using one of your many computers, then you'll need a good soundcard designed for this sort of thing. Soundcards to consider are made by Event, Gadgetlabs, Aardvark and possibly Soundblaster. Question you got to ask yourself here is: how many sources are you going to want to record at the same time? since soundcards come in 2,4,or 8 channels, and that's a big factor in the price. If you want to record the whole band simultaneously, you'll need an 8-channel card (maybe $400-$500).

Then you'll need the software to record, edit and mix your music. There are loads of programs - Cakewalk's famous, and Cubase, Cool Edit Pro, Vegas Pro, etc. This'll cost about as much as the card.

This'll get you started. If you want to learn as much and more than you need about the above, use the search facility on this page, and check out all the useful stuff on the homerecording.com main site.

 

[tmcbrinn]

I agree with dobro, but there are ways to save some cash if you have to. I would use the Windows comp. cause you have a Cd burner. You can use the soundcard you have now, but you can only record 1 thing at a time. For software, check out N-tracks and Power Tracks Pro, I think they go for under $50. Once you get a decent soundcard and software, you can alwayts upgrade your system by adding some moniters and some decent mics....then you'll be set. Stick around!

 

[dobro]

You're right, tee mcbee - I keep forgetting N-tracks - cheap and good option, plus an online forum for learning purposes. Power Tracks only does 2 channels at a time, though, right? Anyway, your post was more encouraging than mine - 'you can do it', rather than 'here are the hurdles'.